I don’t think it’s a surprise that chests aren’t the highest of priorities at the moment, so final design on them is lacking, but personally I think requiring a key for them really only plays into a classical sense of what chests are in an roleplaying game. And… I think we’re just sort of past that in terms of game focus and design. We can logically and realistically map out how chests and their loot effects a game and its players, and design accordingly. There’s no reason to require a key for what is essentially nostalgia.

You’re already fighting against the odds. First did a chest even spawn at all? If it did what quality of a chest is it? If it’s a high quality chest then let the game roll and see if anything even worth picking up pops out. Y’know? It’s a lot of “ifs” and hopes to then also throw an item requirement on top of just to see what the dice show.

I won’t disagree with the… ceremony (uh oh dangerous words) of having a key that then opens a lock. That’s very tangible and real and fulfills a certain desire for work and reward. I carry a key, it opens a lock, good things are behind the lock. But we obviously want to impact inventory as little as possible, and carrying keys just feels like a punishment. Coming across a chest and not having a key, that doesn’t feel fun, that’s really aggravating. Another punishment. Having keys take up no space and be almost infinite in quantity to resolve both those problems and the reason to have keys disappears completely.

So is there any reason to have keys except to fulfill some sense of nostalgia that we know there are locked chests in games, and we need keys to open them.

I don’t ask that rhetorically, sometimes keeping things identifiable and seeming “right”, reminding us of the feeling of past games makes the experience better. So please discuss.

edit: What an odd flip/flopping ramble. Feel free to ignore any of that.